Chief sports columnist and associate editor with The Age

When Magnus Norman took over as coach of Stan Wawrinka, one of his pieces of advice was to the effect that no matter how humble or mighty the tournament, only one player ever can win it. His moral was that Wawrinka should cherish every moment of whatever progression he makes. How prescient those words must appear this week to Wawrinka, who in his last four major championships has won one, made the semis of another – and twice lost in the first round.

In Wawrinka's experience, there are overtones of a remark made by Kim Crow at a high-powered seminar this week in Melbourne entitled "Integrity in sport – Winning at what price?" Crow is an Olympic medallist at rowing, a world champion, also chairperson of the Australian Olympic Committee's athletes' commission and fast emerging as the voice of Australian sport's conscience.

Winning was not so important as aspiring to win, she said. If a sportsperson has done all in his or her powers, then slivers of margins on the scoreboard or stopwatch should not matter. Later, Crow added that if an athlete was not already fulfilled by the journey, winning would not do it. "I cannot contemplate how someone could possibly cheat," she said.

Simon Hollingsworth is a former Olympic runner and hurdler, now chief executive of the Australian Sports Commission. He took issue with Crow to the extent that he thought the crucial dimension in sporting endeavour was the result. It was the context that made sense of it all. John Bertrand, a panelist this night, is one of the most revered figures in Australian sport, but who or what would he be if Australia II had lost that seventh and deciding race at Newport in 1983? Wing-keeled, spring-heeled Australia II, incidentally, might be thought as an early triumph for sports science.

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Hollingsworth hastened to add that no one should conclude that winning and integrity were mutually exclusive. At heart, the sports commission's job, as distributor of government funding to sports, is to pick winners and losers in advance. It does not apologise for concentrating on likely winners, even in obscure or arcane sports, in preference to mere hopefuls in more popular or traditional games.

From this dynamic, expectations flow. Expectation is as much a part of the fabric of sport as winning and losing. At major events, media is accused, with some justification, of inflating expectation. But media is no more ambitious for sportsfolk than they are for themselves, however discreetly. This is the space in which cheats work, indeed in which a thriving cheating industry has grown up. MC Francis Leach said at night's beginning that it was hard not to feel that the cheats were winning.

Everyone is diminished: players, coaches, administrators, fans in their faith, latterly scientists. Victoria University academic Hans Westerbeek lamented that club sports scientists were not bound by the rigour of colleagues in universities and research institutes. AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou doubted that some even were scientists. Victorian Institute of Sport chief executive Anne Marie Harrison said that all of a sudden there were no sports scientists at the VIS; all had new business cards with amended occupations!

Every sport now puts a notional premium on integrity. We now live in such a warp that Australian Institute of Sport chief executive Matt Favier noted that stage 15 of the Giro d'Italia was won in a time three minutes slower than when it was raced over the same course 15 years ago – and rejoiced in it. But Pippa Grange, a psychologist and sports culture expert, worried that young bubble-wrapped athletes were merely being shown the line they must not cross, not why it was there. "It's not just about not breaking rules," she said. She also said it was important to distinguish between unethical and criminal behaviour.

Bertrand said he wanted Swimming Australia, which he now leads, to grow from basket case to case study, for Harvard's MBA course. Former skier and MP Kirsty Marshall aimed higher still – befitting an aerialist – for sport to show society the honest way. These were fine and noble ideals, but are they sustainable in the winning/losing/expectation paradigm? For the next month, Australia will invest massive expectation in the Socceroos, a team it knows cannot win, indeed will need luck not to suffer scoreboard humiliation. Can we join Crow in finding joy in their striving and something to cherish in what few gains they make, knowing THAT is sport?

Ten or so years ago, Melbourne artist and rugby enthusiast Martin Tighe produced a collection of paintings and sculptures on the theme of winning and losing, Always, there were three figures: one winner in the background, two losers in the foreground, which Tighe thought was lifelike in perspective and proportion. At the Australian Open in 2001, Norman, then No. 4 in the world, overruled a let call in his favour on opponent Sebastien Grosjean's match point in the fourth round. If Norman was to know then that he would not win another major championship match in his career, would he have been so generous? About Norman, you suspect he would.